Responsibility and the Spiritual Aspirant

Responsibility, the state of being answerable or accountable, is one of
the major requirements made of any individual who would aspire to spiritual
growth. Assumption of responsibility goes hand-in-hand with the state of self-reliance, which is advanced as a goal for all students of the Western Wisdom
Teachings.

Responsibilities which are to be successfully met by the spiritual
aspirant are not circumscribed by considerations of his own welfare. They
have, instead, to do with the welfare of others. They go beyond the normal
accountability that most adults in the Western World are expected to assume
for the physical and mental welfare of their children and other dependent
family members. The greatest responsibility accruing to any student of the
Rosicrucian Teachings is to spread those Teachings abroad, by example,
to all with whom he comes in contact.

The responsibility of example is well known to educators of young
children, who understand that the child is influenced far more by what he sees
being done than by what he hears someone telling him to do. This principle
applies equally well to adults who, in the main, are much more skeptical than
children with regard to high ideals which transcend material considerations
and values. Many adults have become disillusioned with the tenets of this or
that noble philosophy after they saw those who claimed to espouse those tenets
acting completely contrary to them. This is also true of the Western Wisdom
Teachings. In fact, these Teachings represent such high ideals that it is
likely to be primarily by example, rather than by admonition, that they
will make their greatest practical headway.

To assume our responsibility toward others, of course, it is first
essential that we be ready and able to assume our responsibility toward
others -- in other words, to become as self-reliant as possible, as quickly as
possible. We do not deny that most of us, on occasion, must deal with severe
personal problems that appear insoluble without some kind of outside help in
purely material or spiritual form. We do not deny, furthermore, that reputable
outside guidance or counseling should sometimes be sought in order that relief
be obtained. We do contend, however, that not all problems need be laid at the
feet of a "professional" or an "expert" in order to be successfully solved.

Complete self-reliance is almost impossible to achieve at our
present stage of evolution, but most of us could successfully deal with many
more of our own burdens, by ourselves, than we now do. It is only human to
want to be a "leaner," and the habit of running to someone else with a
pressing matter instead of trying to work it out for ourselves is very hard to
avoid.

There are a number of sources of help available to us when we accept the
responsibility of trying to solve our own problems. It is safe to say that
most people have not begun to utilize these sources to the utmost. The first,
of course, is prayer. If our prayers are sincerely uttered or thought (formal,
ritualized petitions are only one form of prayer and by no means always the
most effective), the response will invariably contain the key to our solution
of the particular problem at hand. We must be prepared, however, to accept the
response as an expression of "His Will," and to discern from that exactly
what the correct action on our part would be. Too many people are prone to
complain that their prays were not answered when, actually, they were, only in
a different manner from that which had been hoped for or anticipated. "Thy
will be done" must be the foundation of all our prayers.

Another source of help is our intuition, the faculty of the Life Spirit
which is always in touch with cosmic wisdom and knows what the correct thing
is to do in any situation. It flashes its messages to the heart, which in turn
passes them on to the brain through the medium of the vagus nerve. The results
in "first impressions," which are always good because they are drawn directly
from the fountain of cosmic wisdom and love in the World of Life Spirit. The
better we learn to heed these impressions when they come and to disregard the
temptation to distort them by the addition of those selfish considerations
contributed by the intellect which so quickly rise to the surface, the more
potent an aid in the assumption of responsibility will intuition become.

Knowledge, which is another of our sources of help in the assumption of
responsibility, is in itself a responsibility. Knowledge inherently is neither
good nor evil. Possessed of knowledge, however, an individual can become a
driving force for good, or the very embodiment of evil. Obviously, then, the
greater our knowledge the greater our responsibility for its use.

The most important knowledge to which we can aspire is knowledge of the
use of spiritual power. As we know, the Adepts are so imbued with this
knowledge that they are able to perform seeming "miracles," although what they
are actually doing is working with the forces of Nature in ways as yet unknown
to most of mankind. Some may say, "I am far from being an Adept, so I don't
have to worry yet about the responsibility of exercising spiritual power."
This idea, however, is not true. We all have much more spiritual power at our
disposal than is generally believed.

Thoughts are a tremendous source of spiritual power, and whether they be
exerted in the cause of good or evil, or whether they be completely
ineffective, depends entirely on the thinker himself. Thoughts of help, of
healing, of compassion, tenderness, sympathy, understanding, optimism, good
cheer, and most of all, thoughts which are concentrated on shining the Light
around someone else, are dynamic in their beneficent effect. They also
ultimately rebound to our credit and contribute markedly to our own soul
growth. Spiteful thoughts, and sentiments of hatred, anger, jealousy, and fear
have only detrimental effects on the object against which they are directed,
and invariably return to harm the person who directed them. One of the most
effective ways in which we can undertake the responsibility of rendering
needed assistance to someone else is to concentrate on sending him our most
uplifting sentiments. If the thoughts of all humanity were suddenly channeled
in an upward, spiritual direction, the tremendous force for good thus released
would be beyond belief. Our responsibility with regard to our thoughts, then,
as they pertain to ourselves and to others, is very great, and grows in
proportion as we become spiritually more perceptive.

We cannot shirk our responsibilities, and the longer we try to evade them,
the harder our lot will become. Under the Law of Cause and Effect, we are each
responsible for the consequences of every thought we think, every word we say,
and every deed we do. Sometimes, these consequences assume incredibly vast
proportions. A seemingly insignificant act which appears to involve only one
other person may prove to have ramifications which touch upon dozens or even
hundreds more. We will, somehow, have to reap the consequences, either in the
present or a subsequent life.

As still-evolving, and still very imperfect individuals, we are bound to
make some mistakes, no matter how carefully we try to meet all our
responsibilities. An honest mistake, made in a sincere endeavor to be
constructive, will somehow have to be corrected, of course. The context of
that correction, however, is not likely to be nearly as severe as would be the
karma we set up for ourselves by side-stepping responsibility or deliberately
doing what we know to be wrong in the interests of self-aggrandizement.

In our zeal to meet what we consider to be our responsibilities, we must
conduct ourselves so that we do not hinder the very people we are trying to
help. Our responsibility toward others does not include encouraging them to
lean upon us. On the contrary, one of the greatest responsibilities is to
encourage others to learn to help themselves. In many cases, of course,
material, medical, educational, or other assistance must first be rendered to
an initially passive recipient before he becomes able actively to attend to
his own welfare. Once this has been done, however, the time comes for him to
take his own first steps. He, too, will eventually have to learn to walk by
himself, and the more we can aid him in doing so, the more valuable will our
assistance have been and the more admirably will we have fulfilled our
responsibility toward him.

The exercise and fulfillment of responsibility, then, is imperative for
spiritual aspirants. Responsibilities continually impose themselves upon us,
from the performance of the morning and evening exercises to the physical
assistance that we render to someone obviously in need, and including all our
thoughts and deeds in between. In one sense, we are never free from
responsibility, because it is incumbent upon us as aspirants to see to it that
even our "leisure time" is constructively, albeit perhaps restfully, employed.
To meet our responsibilities adequately, we must mace the most effective use
possible of our practical and spiritual knowledge, and of our spiritual power.